Dress Like A Businessman While You Breastfeed! Um, No Thanks

Over at The Guardian, Naomi McAuliffe wrote the weirdest thing you’ll ever read about neckties. Even weirder than her longwinded piece about the “sexiness” of ties? She suggests that a shirt and tie is the perfect thing to wear while breastfeeding. O-kay.

Using the closing of Tie Rack stores all over the UK as an opportunity to launch into a random rant about how women should wear shirts and ties more, McAuliffe somehow concludes that dressing like your dad is totally convenient for feeding your baby. She writes:

Plus, I have recently found a new reason to wear a shirt and tie: breastfeeding. Stick with me here. A shirt and tie mean that the top of your chest is covered so you feel less exposed; the tie provides something robust for the baby to hold and play with (I’ve had two necklaces broken while holding baby nieces), and no one would ever dare admonish a woman for breastfeeding in public if she is wearing a shirt and tie. She clearly means business and only a badass mother wears a tweed suit.

Um. I’m so confused about this. Why and how would a shirt and tie for the perfect thing to wear while breastfeeding? I guess she means that the baby can tug on the tie rather than a necklace but….wouldn’t that choke you? I haven’t personally breastfed myself, so I can’t say, but it also seems like a button-down shirt would expose even more of your breasts than a shirt specially designed for breastfeeding moms. I mean…doesn’t it flap open? So there’s the shirt flapping and the tie flapping and all the while you get to look like a businessman while feeding your baby. Doesn’t seem ideal to me, that’s for sure.

Her point about people being less likely to admonish women for breastfeeding in public if they’re wearing a shirt and tie is also…weird. You should be able to feed your baby in public no matter what you’re wearing. You can totally be a badass mother without wearing a tweed suit!

If wearing a shirt and tie works for McAuliffe while she breastfeeds, I’m all for it. But somehow I don’t think this is a trend that’s going to be catching on anytime soon.